Confessions of a Bombshell Bandit (2 page)

The woman, district manager for L.A. Mu, raised an eyebrow at me. "Inappropriate how?" she asked "Please elaborate?"

I took a deep breath. "He calls me 'muffin.'"

"Muffin?"

I nodded. "And 'sugar cakes' and 'honey buns' and sometimes even 'dumpling pie.'"

The district manager pursed her lips, but it was impossible to tell what she was thinking.

So, I plowed ahead.

"And it's not even that he just calls me these degrading things, but he does it to my chest. He always talks to my chest."

The DM looked down at my chest. Luckily, I'd had the forethought to dress in a high necked sweater.

"Now, I've always been a sticks-and-stones kind of girl," I continued. "So, I've tried to shrug it off. But, last Monday he…" I paused. I did another deep breath. "He touched me."

This got the DM's attention. "Touched you?" she asked leaning forward, her pen hovering expectantly over her clipboard.

I nodded again. "Yes. He…" I paused, trying to think of a genteel way to say this. Then gave up. There was nothing genteel about it. "He grabbed my ass."

She narrowed her eyes at me. "I see. She scribbled something on the clipboard.

"I don't want to make waves," I assured her, knowing that the last person who'd complained against the all powerful Leeman had been transferred to the South Central branch of L.A. Mu, where she had to go through a metal detector every morning, "but I just want him to stop. It's… inappropriate."

"I see," she repeated. Still scribbling.

"We all went to the sensitivity training session last month and they said we had a responsibility to the team to report any inappropriate behavior."

"Uh huh."

"So, um, I'm reporting it," I said, craning my neck to see what she was writing. 'Grabbed my ass' seemed like a pretty quick thing to jot down and she was now working on paragraph three.

She quickly slapped a hand over her clipboard, obscuring her notes.

I cleared my throat. "Right. So, um, I just want him to stop. Okay?"

"Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Miss Cabot. I'll look into it."

Hmm. I noticed she hadn't actually said what she'd do. I rose and shook her hand, trying in vain to get a look at her notes, then hopped in my little red Civic (parked two blocks down and behind a dumpster to avoid Mr. Repo) and left the district office for my own L.A. Mu branch, where, I realized looking at my dash clock, I was already five minuets late for my shift. I hated having to tattle on my lunch hour.

* * *

"So, what did she say?" Lynette asked. "Are they going to fire The Octopus?"

Quinn rolled her green eyes up toward her spiked hair. Blue today. "Geeze, Lynnie. The guy grabs Carrie's ass and suddenly he's an Octopus?"

"He touched my booty, too! In the break room yesterday. My husband hasn't even had his hands on my booty in six weeks," Lynette mumbled wistfully.

"TMI, honey." Quinn flicked cigarette ash onto the pavement behind L.A. MU. "So, what
did
she say?"

I took a long sip from my Diet Coke before answering. Ever since I'd gotten back to my teller window (ten minutes late, Mr. Leeman had irritably pointed out) I'd been running the conversation with the DM through my head. Three hours later, on our mandatory five minute coffee break, I was no closer to a conclusion. "She said she'd look into it."

"What does that mean?" Lynette asked, popping the rest of her fat free muffin into her mouth. After dropping two babies in twenty months, Lynnie lived on a fat-free diet. "Does that mean he's going to get fired? He should get fired. He's a total perv."

"And he talks to my chest," I reminded her.

"He talks to all our chests," Quinn added, making the most of her bee bites in a low cut, V- necked blouse today.

"God, what I wouldn't give to see him fired." Lynette got a far away look in her eyes, imagining a Leeman-free workplace. I had to admit, the thought filled me with the warm fuzzies, too.

David, the security guard, stuck his head out of the back door. He was clean shaven, clean-cut, and I'd bet his butt cheeks squeaked when he walked, he was so clean. Rumor had it he'd wanted to join the army – hence his quarter-inch crew cut – but they'd turned him down because the vision in his right eye was only 50%. Lucky us, they let him walk around our branch with a gun instead.

"Break's over, gals."

"Thanks, tiger," Quinn said, giving him a wink. David blushed clear to his blond roots.

"Oh, and Carrie," he added. "Leeman wants to see you in his office. The District Manager is here."

Lynette raised an eyebrow at me. "Wow. That was fast."

Yeah. Almost too fast. I bit my lip. Then realized I'd been doing that a lot lately and made myself stop, knowing it'd look like chewed hamburger by the end of the day if I kept this up.

Quinn crushed her cigarette beneath the toe of one snakeskin pump and we followed her back into the bank. Lynnie and Quinn took their places at the first and second teller windows, switching out their 'next window please' signs. I passed my window, instead swerving right into Mr. Leeman's big, glass office in the back corner of the bank. Leeman was standing beside his massive oak desk, his bald head shining in the glare from the fluorescent lights. His pencil thin mustache twitched on his pasty upper lip as I entered the room.

"Miss Cabot," he began in a voice that was all nasal. "I have some sad news."

I looked from him to the stoic DM. "Yes?"

"We regret that we're going to have to let you go."

I blinked. "Excuse me?" My gazed rocketed from Leeman to the DM again. "Let me go… where?"

Leeman cleared his throat. "Terminate your employment here at L.A. Mu. I'm sorry, but we've been going over your last performance review and we both agree that it's substandard."

"Substandard? You've got to be kidding me."

Only he didn't look like he was joking.

"But… but…" I sputtered, appealing to the DM. "But what about the grabbing? And the 'muffin'?"

She spoke up for the first time. "Miss Cabot, bringing false sexual harassment claims against your manager is no way to hold onto your job. Mr. Leeman tells me your performance has been slipping for months. You're repeatedly late for work and take excessively long lunch breaks. Today's included."

"But I was with you!" I was shouting now, feeling my face grow hot with a mixture of anger and embarrassment. But mostly anger. What the hell was going on here?!

"Yes, you were," the DM replied calmly. "Filing false accusations. For which, quite frankly, I'm appalled."

My jaw dropped open, tears lining up behind my eyes, ready to march straight down my flushed cheeks. They had to be joking. False accusations? Substandard performance? This was not happening.

I realized Leeman was still talking, his nasally voice droning on like an annoying fly. "… we'll need you to clear out your things immediately. David will escort you back to your window."

David appeared suddenly in the doorway, looking sheepish as if he'd heard every word.

I stood up, my mouth opening and shutting, trying to come up with something – anything! – to say in my defense. But I could tell by the look on the DM's face that she'd made up her mind. Leeman was the manager and I was substandard and now I was getting a security escort from the building.

Numbly, I allowed David to steer me back to my window. I passed by Quinn, who mouthed me a, "What's up?", her drawn-in brows puckering in concern. I managed to mouth back a, "later."

David, embarrassed by the whole thing, stood back while I gathered my personal belongings. Which weren't many. A couple of clipped cartoons, a pen I'd brought from home, two framed postcards of tropical islands that I'd never have the cash to actually visit.

Especially now that I was unemployed.

I heard Quinn ask David what was up. David went into the impression of a lovesick school boy that he always did around Quinn, and Quinn ate it up, flirting the way she always did around David. But I tuned them both out. I was still seething, the embarrassment slash anger thing turning into full blown pissed-off. How could the DM have sold me out like that? A woman even. What had all that crap about team players been at the sensitivity training? That's it, I was going to get a lawyer. A big, mean, pit bull of a lawyer and sue the whole damn L.A. Mu 'team'. Even the dancing cow!

Had I not been so intent plotting my revenge (and wondering where on earth I could scrape together the cash for a pit-bull lawyer), I might have noticed him sooner. As it was, I didn't even look up until he was already at my window.

He was average height, brown hair, wearing an Anaheim Angels baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. His gym-made build was encased in a non-descript white T-shirt and worn jeans. My eyes lingered a moment on the jeans, tight in all the right places against the guy's fit form.

"Hi," he said.

I snapped my eyes back up to meet his. Blue. Really blue, like that fabled clear blue California sky that I'm told resides just above our smog layer. And they crinkled at the corners just a little. Like at any moment his rock-star gorgeous face might break out into a smile. I wracked my brain trying to think if I'd seen this guy on MTV recently.

"Hi," I said back. Odd. My voice had suddenly gone up about two octaves. I licked my lips.

"Could you help me…" he paused to read my name tag. "…Carrie?"

"I'd really love to…" Oh, boy, would I! "…but, I'm sorry this window is closed. If you'd like to step over to…"

But I trailed off as the man slid a piece of paper along the counter toward me. It read: Empty the drawer. Keep your hands where I can see them. I have a gun.

Oh. Shit.

I looked up at him. He was still doing that casual half smile thing, his blue eyes as friendly as if we were chatting over coffee.

I licked my lips again, my mouth dry for a whole new reason.

"Seriously?" I whispered.

His eyes crinkled more and he leaned in close. "Seriously," he whispered back, his voice low and deep. "So, go nice and slowly and just empty the drawer. Okay, Carrie?"

I nodded. Then took a deep breath, my hands starting to shake. I'd been warned about this sort of thing when I'd first been hired, but it hadn't actually happened until now. I tried to remember what the human resources lady had told me. Something about cooperating. Since the blue eyed man apparently had a gun, I was all for that course of action. I punched in my code to open the drawer.

"This has got to be the worst fricking day of my life," I mumbled under my breath. I glanced behind me, trying to catch David's eye. Unfortunately it was firmly rooted to Quinn's rising hemline as she leaned over to help a customer.

"Crack security team you have here." The man grinned, nodding toward David.

"L.A. Mu only hires the best."

"I liked the guy in the cow suit outside. Nice touch."

"Our manager has a thing for puns."

"So I noticed."

"Lousy sonofabitch."

He raised one eyebrow.

"Not you," I explained, remembering the gun. "The manager. He just fired me because
he
grabbed
my
ass."

"Hardly seems fair."

"Tell me about it."

"Maybe you should sue him," he offered.

"I was thinking the same thing," I said. I noticed he was oddly easy to talk to for a bank robber.

"I don't mean to cut this short, Carrie, but could you hurry up a little?"

My hands were shaking so badly I was having a hard time getting the cash out of the drawer. I took another steadying breath, trying to keep him talking. If he was talking, he wasn't shooting, right? "So, what are you going to do with this money anyway?" I asked.

"I thought I might run away to the Bahamas."

I paused, a twenty suspended in mid-air. "Really?"

He shrugged his captain-of-the-football-team shoulders. "Or, maybe I'll buy a llama farm."

"You're pulling my leg."

"You have nice legs."

Crap. The best compliment I'd gotten in weeks and it came from a felon.

"You know, there are seven security cameras in this place," I said, trying to keep the quiver out of my voice. "You're not going to get away with this."

His eyes crinkled again. "Maybe. But I know for a fact that only three are hooked up, the other four are dummies. The three working cameras are trained on the door, your blue haired co-worker's window, and the outer office to the vault."

Crap. He'd done his homework. Even I hadn't know about the camera on Quinn. I made a mental note to warn her not to make a rude gestures behind Leeman's back anymore. He probably catalogued them from the tapes after hours.

"Look, if it makes you feel any better," he said, "this place has insurance up the wazoo. They're expecting someone like me to come in and relieve them of a little cash. They'll be fully reimbursed. Heck, they probably won't even bother looking for me."